If Facebook’s News Feed, ChatRoulette and the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google Search have taught us one thing, it’s that random may not always be such a great thing. It’s often nice to have some kind of filter in place before diving into the unknown. It’s even better to know a little bit about what you’re getting yourself into before anything embarrassing happens.

SurfaceBreaker.com is a site that asks its users to build a profile about the­mselves by answering a series of questions, and then learn about other users on the site based on how they’ve answered those same questions. If an answer is intriguing, then follow up by sending a private message. Get a bit of a dialogue going, and then jump into a chat.

And that’s where OpenTok comes into play.

Once both sides know enough about each other, the chat option on SurfaceBreaker.com allows the user to start a video chat that is powered by OpenTok. Since both users have gotten through their own personal filters there won’t be the same problems associated with video chatting with random people as those found on ChatRoulette. Says Peter Keuler, the developer behind SurfaceBreaker.com,

“When the conversation reaches the stage where Surfacebreaker Chat asks its participants if they would like to see each other, it exposes another level of trust and understanding between them hopefully taking the conversation even further.”

and then follows up with:

“Webcams are a superb addition to this concept.”

Chatting with Janine on the SurfaceBreaker.com Chat

When asked about developing with the OpenTok platform, Peter gave a great review for the OpenTok platform saying,

“As a solo developer, the OpenTok API was phenomenal to work with. When I was in the middle of building my site, it only took me 3 days to get webcams working. One on the things I needed Surfacebreaker Chat to do was to asynchronous connect and disconnect to multiple webcam sessions without having to reload the page, and OpenTok did that easily. Even though it [was] just released, the API feels very mature.”

Here at TokBox we definitely appreciate the kind words, and the positive feedback. If you want to check out the Surfacebreaker chat functionality, then head on over to surfacebreaker.com/chat and check it out. If you want to learn more about building your own video chat powered application, then dive into the OpenTok platform and feel free to reach out to us with any questions, inquiries, concerns, launches or other news!